onsistent. They are masters of their
formulae; they know how to deduce consequences from them; they believe
in them the same as a surveyor in his theorems, and a theologian in
the articles of his faith; they are anxious to apply them, to devise
a constitution, to establish a regular government, to emerge from a
barbarous state, to put an end to fighting in the street, to pillaging,
to murders, to the sway of brutal force and of naked arms.

The disorder, mover, so repugnant to them as logicians is still more
repugnant to them as cultivated, polished men. They have a sense of what
is proper,[3344] of becoming ways, and their tastes are even refined.
They are not familiar with, nor do they desire to imitate, the
rude manners of Danton, his coarse language, his oaths, and his low
associations with the people. They have not, like Robespierre, gone to
lodge with a master joiner, to live him and eat with his family. Unlike
Pache, Minister of War, no one among them "feels honored" by "going down
to dine with his porter," and by sending his daughters to the club to
give a fraternal kiss to drunken Jacobins.[3345] At Madame Roland's
house there is a salon, although it is stiff and pedantic; Barbaroux
send verses to a marchioness, who, after the 2nd of June, elopes with
him to Caen.[3346] Condorcet has lived in high society, while his wife,
a former canoness, possess the charms, the repose, the instruction, and
the elegance of an accomplished woman. Men of this stamp cannot endure
close alongside of them the inept and gross dictatorship of an armed
rabble. In providing for the public treasury they require regular taxes
and not tyrannical confiscations.[3347] To repress the malevolent they
propose "punishment and not banishment."[3348] In all State trials
they oppose irregular courts, and strive to maintain for those under
indictment some of the usual safeguards.[3349] On declaring the King
guilty they hesitate in pronouncing the sentence of death, and try to
lighten their responsibility by appealing to the people. The line "laws
and not blood," was a line which, causing a stir in a play of the day,
presented in a nutshell their political ideas. And, naturally, the law,
especially Republican law, is the law of all; once enacted, nobody,
no citizen, no city, no party, can refuse to obey it without being
criminal. It is monstrous that one city should arrogate to itself the
privilege of ruling the nation; Paris, like other departments